Not the highest of fi as far as videos go, but worth a look; this is Jynxt playing the Bull And Gate sometime around 2007-ish:

Jynxt were something of a strange offering: mostly comprised of the children on one of Fleetwood Mac (Jeremy Spencer, to be precise), all the indications were that they should have been dreadful, but they were actually alright. Look, try this without the limitations of live video:

Admittedly, you'd probably have to have a weakness for mid-80s eurorock to really warm to them.

The various websites which remain about the band suggest they were set to rock 2006 and, with a little less conviction, that they were set to rock 2007. I don't think 2008 ever really braced itself to be rocked by them; and, a bit like the Cosby show, the desperate packing of the original line-up with non-relatives watered down the proposition considerably.

Dr. Steven M. Zeitels, the Boston surgeon who operated on Adele to fix bleeding in her larynx, said that over the last 15 years the use of fiber-optic cameras that can scan the vocal cords for minuscule injuries and abnormalities has become common. It is now possible to spot problems like bleeding, nodules and cysts earlier and to take swift action to fix them, he said.

“Is there some epidemic? No,” he said. “The only thing different happening is the singers know better how to take care of themselves, the doctors know better how to take care of them, and what has been happening always is just getting noticed.”

I suspect there's also an element of insurance companies being more bullish on their demands for the problems to be fixed early on, too.

So, with the Bull And Gate on the market, let's have a wade through the YouTubes to demonstrate just how important the venue has been in offering both early legs-up to growing bands and slots to other bands who might never get much bigger.

Somewhere up in the loft, I've got a copy of The End, the fanzine put together by The Farm. I can read the rest now, should I wish to, as there's a book gathering all 20 issues together. And there's bit and pieces from the title on that site, too.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Johnny Vaughan is leaving 95.8 Capital FM after nearly eight years as the London station's breakfast DJ.

Vaughan's co-presenter Lisa Snowdon will continue to front the breakfast show with stand-in Greg Burns from Monday, with a replacement full time co-host to be announced by the Global Radio-owned station in due course.

It might just be me, but does anyone feel that it's somewhat sudden for a departure to be announced on a Friday lunchtime, with some seatmeat dropped in to fill the slot the following Monday while the search for a replacem?

The real worry, though, is what this means for the advert featuring Snowdon, Vaughan and those bemusing breakfast biscuits. The ones that thought there was something so unusual about eating a biscuit in the morning that the concept needed to be explained incredibly slowly. What will they do now? (I'm assuming the answer is 'desperately try to flog the remaining stock through Home Bargains for 25p a box'.)

Smiths fans should worry about a cover version on a John Lewis advert. How much of a schmuck must you feel if you'd bought into the Dead Kennedys worldview, only to find this sort of thing being officially available:

A lot of huff has been expended on the decision by Morrissey and Marr to let John Lewis write them large cheques this Christmas. Now Johnny Marr is fighting back. Speaking from, probably, a Jacuzzi of cash, Marr explained that letting the song advertise geegaws and whatnots wasn't a bad thing at all:

Writing 'Please Please...' one Friday in '84 is one of the best memories of my life. This ad has not sullied that memory one bit."

"And you know what", he continued. "If my memory had been sullied, I could have just popped it into a John Lewis JLBIWM1402 Integrated Washing Machine. That baby has an A+ energy rating, and can make light work of a six kilo load. That would unsully anything."

He then went on to criticise the fans who had been "bitching and moaning whilst, wait for it, watching X Factor."

"... almost certainly, though, not on a screen that could hold a candle to the John Lewis JL19 LED TV, which has pinsharp clarity on the picture but is small enough to make a handy second TV. Maybe for kid's room or the caravan?"

... before linking to a YouTube video of former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins, in which the punk singer dismisses the notion of using songs in advertisements as "selling out".

"After all" he concluded "if you really want to see selling out, get yourself down to John Lewis and watch the way the twig Christmas tableware is flying off the shelves. That playful but practical cutlery is going to be a talking point in smart households up and down the nation."

I think the taking the cash is alright, but the whiny self-justification for it is a bit much to take. You wonder who Marr is trying to convince; and to just dismiss the fans who made The Smiths concerns about something very important to them being used in an ad is ungrateful, to say the least.

But it's not like the travesty that Littlewoods have made of Terry Scott's My Brother, is it?

Gracey took a hand at most parts in the great musical dance during a forty year career; more-or-less inventing progressive country as a genre during his time as a DJ in the 70s; writing, producing and playing bass for bands (including his wife's, Kimmie Dawson). He also co-ordinated the talent for the very first Austin City Limits.

Joe Gracey, who was 61, had fought cancer more than once - an operation in 1977 had left him unable to talk; the Austin Statesman reports that it was cancer which took his life.

He's saying it as an example of how weak some causation arguments can be - in other words, he doesn't really mean it - but I did enjoy Barry Ritholtz's blog suggesting that MTV's Cribs was responsible for the housing crisis and, thereby, the financial hole we're all in:

The series showcased the huge, luxurious homes of the rich and famous in music, film, and sports. It was watched by young, easily influenced kids who would soon be out on their own, buying Cribs that they themselves could not afford.

That's to say nothing, of course, the channel's long-standing demonstration of an unsustainable lifestyle where you could get not just your money for nothing, but also your chicks for free. Surely that undermined the entire work ethic of the Western world?

Stephen Hines, an employee of the group’s record label Rock Action Records, who discovered the break-in at the band’s base, said: “This is Stuart’s recording guitar. It doesn’t even go on tour with him as it’s very precious to him. I had to break the news to him.”

Stuart said: “Everyone is gutted about this theft. We have been lucky that most of our equipment is currently on tour with us, meaning the theft could have been a lot worse.”

They're asking for anyone who knows anything - presumably somebody flogging a lovely guitar you'd not have expected them to have had - to get in touch with police. Or have the curse of Mogwai rain down on your head.

Sherborne said that "Whilst Mr Grant was appearing on Question Time, discussing the closure of the NoW, Rupert Murdoch and press standards generally, she received a barrage of telephone calls from a withheld number from someone who managed to get it from somewhere, and when they finally answered she was threatened in the most menacing terms, which should reverberate around this inquiry: 'Tell Hugh Grant he must shut the fuck up'. Unsurprisingly she was too stressed to call the police."

The barrister also claimed that Tinglan Hong's mother was almost run over by paparazzi in the weeks after Grant became one of the most prominent critics of News International.
[...]
Near the end of a lengthy diatribe against tabloid press ethics and behaviour, the lawyer said he had secured an emergency injunction on behalf of the mother of Hugh Grant's child. Sherborne claimed the real reason for her injunction is that she has received threats because the father of child has spoken out against the press.

I'm sure Gordon would have been worried that, having run non-stories about Grant's relationship, some people might assume The Sun was in some way connected with this grisly business. No wonder attention to detail might have been sloppy at Wapping.

It's been owned by the same family, The Lynskeys, for the last 32 years; they're now finding the economic going tough and are looking for someone to take it off their hands. There are hopes that it will continue in its current line of busines, but the agent selling the place can't help pointing out that, you know, it could be anything:

Chris Bickle of Davis Coffer Lyons commented: “This landmark pub venue is quite possibly the most renowned place in the capital to see unsigned acts and has played a major and historical role in London’s drinking and live music scene for decades.”

“We very much hope to find a buyer who can continue the tradition of live music at this location. At the same time, the sheer size of the building will obviously appeal to investors and developers,” he continued.

Let's hope it finds a buyer who wants the music to go on; maybe one of the bands who's played there on the way up might want to preserve a place that helped them.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Chris Martin tried to write for Beyonce, but Beyonce turned her nose up:

Well, I did write a song for Beyonce, but it got rejected by her A&R people. And the one I wrote for Rihanna didn't get rejected.

Apparently there are, like, barriers, man:

"It was when [Rihanna] was doing 'Rated R', but it took so long – there's still this tribalism in music where we're rock and you're hip hop, and sometimes it takes a while to get across those barriers."

ST Holdings, which distributes electronic music (as in mp3, not as in Delia Derbyshire), has noticed that it's earning less money of late. In the third quarter of 2011, total revenue has fallen 14% and revenue from iTunes is down nearly a quarter.

"As a distributor we have to do what is best for our labels," states the company. "The majority of which do not want their music on such services because of the poor revenues and the detrimental affect on sales. Add to that, the feeling that their music looses it’s specialness by it’s exploitation as a low value/free commodity."

The tracks, from 234 of the 238 labels who ST work with, are also being taken from Rdio and Napster.

The reaction of one of their labels reaction was, “Let’s keep the music special, fuck Spotify”.

You'll spot the use of the word "special", which is being used here to mean something other than special; something between "lucrative" and "exclusive".

There's something a little amusing about parts of the music industry suddenly coming to see iTunes as the high-value way of distributing music and streaming as a cost-cutting upstart. It remains to be seen if this short-term decision makes sense in the long-term: will iTunes always be offering such a good deal? Will there be an inexorable shift to streaming? Might people feel their "special" music shouldn't attract "special" prices? (At a guess: no, maybe, and yes.)

The unlikely claim that Justin Bieber not only had testicles, but had deployed them appears to have been withdrawn after the claimant suddenly realised you might want to choose as your mark somebody likely to have had a thirty-second backstage shag and forgotten it.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

ReDigi offers an internet-era version of that stand-by for lean weeks, flogging off your records. It has a service which checks that you've deleted your copy of song, allowing it to sell it to a new owner.
Naturally, the RIAA feels this must be stopped, as ars technica reports:

ReDigi must "quarantine any copies on its servers of our Member's sound recordings so that those recordings are not exploited in any manner," the RIAA's Jennifer L. Pariser insists. On top of that, ReDigi must erase from its website "all references to the names and likenessess of artists signed to RIAA members" and break any ongoing connections between the operation's current downloaders and its servers.

Next, RIAA wants ReDigi to fork over "an accounting of all sales achieved and revenue generated" from RIAA member sound recordings through the ReDigi service, "so that we can discuss a resolution of our Members' claims."

"In this record, I note that the statutory damages for willful copyright infringement can be as high as $150,000 per work infringed," Pariser adds.

The main worry for the RIAA is that this again reinforces the idea of digital music being something you own, rather than rent; ReDigi maintain that it's perfectly legal to sell something you own, providing you do actually sell it.

That there's a demand for the saving offered by second-hand files - about 50% off the price - should be of more interest to the labels, as it suggests there's a huge market being missed out because the pricepoint is wrong. Maybe if they could stop being fixated on copyright, the RIAA could start to understand what happened to its business.

The NME admits it's just copied the story direct from the Daily Mail, but - not for the first time - you wonder if the point of being the NME should be not simply nodding along with everything it reads on the internet:

An inside source, meanwhile, described the performance as "controversial and unnecessary" before going on to add: "This is appalling for women all over the world who suffer domestic violence."

The Mail actually doesn't even pretend this is a "source", simply ascribing the quote to an "insider".

An insider of what? You wouldn't expect the Mail to bother with the question, but surely the NME might show a bit of curiosity about the quote it's typing out. Especially since it's potentially the sort of issue the NME used to care about - is it okay for a woman to cut up a cake of herself on stage? Or does it really represent (as the Mail suggests the audience claimed) violence against women?

The Quietus has done an email interview with Andrew Eldritch, which is hilarious (he refers to himself in the third person throughout, for a start) and worth a few moments of your time:

Andrew, from clips I've seen of the current tour, you look in better shape and sound in better voice than you have done in years. Do you have a health regime?

Andrew Eldritch/The Sisters: Yes. We may produce a fitness video. Chris is good at rugby league, because he's built like a brick palace. Ben is good at sleeping with people who might possibly be girls, so he has abdominal muscles like a Greek god. Andrew is very good at dancing around with a vicious metal stick, but therein lies our major problem: there are new laws prohibiting the consensual mix of sex and violence.

Garrick was mostly self-taught - he'd been drummed out of music classes for throwing a snatch of Glen Miller into a classical class recital - and formed his own quartet while still an English Literature student at UCL. Across a long career, Garrick worked with a number of names, expected and surprising, from Anita Wardell to Spike Milligan.

He was heavily involved in jazz education, alongside his composing, playing, and running his own jazz label. He was made a CBE in the birthday honours last year.

IT has been a while since Michael Jackson fans had anything to celebrate.

Really? I'm pretty sure I spotted most of the rump turning a manslaughter verdict into a tailgate party just a few days ago. But do carry on:

But his loyal army can now look forward to songs he recorded with Freddie Mercury being released next year.

You say that like it's a good thing.

These recordings were done in 1983, and were so toxic they have been stored ever since in a sealed metal box somewhere under Pencross Fell. So why disinter them now?

Brian [May] has put to rest any money-making conspiracies that always seem to surface.

To be fair to May, I suspect he's being honest - he has a track record of being led by curiosity into doing terrible things - although it's hard to believe that's the motivation for the Jackson family.

Still, something that was so disappointing that the people involved didn't want them released while they were still alive. Why drag it out now?

STV have the sort of convincing explanation that Theresa May might make:

STV said in a statement: "The STV web team prepared stories regarding each contestant in anticipation of the result and due to a technical hitch, all four stories went live on our website.

"We would stress that this was purely a technical hitch and for this we apologise."

Now, we've all done this - accidentally putting live something that you intended for draft - but it's odd that most people only seem to have spied the page hailing the success of Amelia Lily, the actual winner of the vote; and while preparing the pages in advance makes sense, would they have left it so late to compile the pages?

Doubtless all cock-up, but it doesn't look good.

Especially on a day when people are being encouraged to vote formerly evicted contestants back on to the programme. You might recall that when this happened on Big Brother, Channel 4 were censured and forced to pay £50,000 to the then-phone regulator ICSTIS.